Can the Bucs stop their freefall before the calendar flips to 2026? Losers of six of their last seven games, they’ll be down in Miami on the final Sunday of 2025 needing a win over the Dolphins to keep their playoff hopes alive. Tampa Bay comes in at 7-8, while Miami is 6-9 and already eliminated from playoff contention over in the AFC.

Following a third straight NFC South loss in Week 16, a 23-20 defeat at the hands of the Panthers, the Bucs find themselves trailing in the division by a full game. However, due to tiebreakers, this team somehow controls its own destiny despite dropping from 5-1 and 6-2 all the way down to 7-8.

With a win on Sunday and a win over the Panthers on the first weekend of 2026, Todd Bowles and Co. will somehow, some way win a fifth straight NFC South title and make the playoffs for a sixth consecutive season.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: IMAGN – Jim Dedmon

On the other hand, a Tampa Bay loss to Miami combined with a Carolina win over Seattle would wrap up the division for Dave Canales and his team, rendering the Week 18 season finale at Raymond James Stadium completely meaningless outside of draft positioning for the Bucs. There’s also the scenario where both teams lose, which would mean it all comes down to that finale to decide which 8-9 team wins the division.

First things first, though, and that’s the task at hand at Hard Rock Stadium. Before we dive further in our “What to Watch For” preview later this week, here’s a general preview of Sunday afternoon’s battle between two underperforming Florida teams:

The Last Time…

This will be the first regular season meeting between the Bucs and Dolphins since 2021. In Week 5 of that season, Tampa Bay rolled to a 45-17 win over Miami at Raymond James Stadium to build a 4-1 start to the season.

That was a game that featured a Tom Brady masterclass, with the G.O.A.T. throwing for 411 yards and five touchdowns on 30-of-41 passing. Both Antonio Brown and Mike Evans helped in that effort, with Brown catching seven passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns while Evans added six catches for 113 yards and two scores of his own.

Bucs QB Tom Brady – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Leonard Fournette added 67 yards and a touchdown on the ground as the Bucs ran up 558 yards of offense, averaged 7.8 yards per play and went 8-of-11 on third downs.

The Tampa Bay defense played a part in the fun on that afternoon as well, tallying three sacks and two takeaways. Shaq Barrett had 1.5 sacks, while Lavonte David notched one as well and Vita Vea was credited with a half-sack. Jamel Dean had an interception and Ndamukong Suh recovered a fumble that was forced by Barrett for the two turnovers.

This will be the 13th regular season meeting between these two teams. The Bucs come in with a 7-5 advantage as winners of three straight and six of seven in the series. However, Tampa Bay is just 2-3 all-time in Miami.

How The Bucs And Dolphins Are Trending

The collapse for the Bucs continued in Week 16 in an absolutely critical game against the Panthers. Even after losing back-to-back games to the Saints and Falcons and dropping five of six games since the bye week, they could’ve set themselves up with a chance to clinch the NFC South with a win over the Dolphins in Week 17.

All they needed was a win over the Panthers in Charlotte. But despite having the ball for nearly 35 of the game’s 60 minutes – accomplishing the goal of what was an extremely bizarre gameplan – the Bucs lost 23-20 and now have their backs firmly against the wall with two games left.

Tampa Bay quite clearly isn’t a good football team these days. Things looked really nice with all of the late-game heroics early on in the season, didn’t they? The Bucs got to 5-1 and then 6-2, and they did that while surviving an unfortunate run of injuries. But since their bye week in Week 9, this team has fallen off a cliff. There was a 28-23 loss at home to the Patriots, a 44-32 road loss to the Bills and a 34-7 defeat on the road against the Rams.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: IMAGN – Jim Dedmon

Whatever, right? That post-bye losing streak wasn’t ideal, but the schedule softened up starting in Week 13, and given their recent late-season runs under Todd Bowles, the Bucs seemed primed to take advantage of their remaining games. But since a three-point win over the Cardinals in Week 13, they’ve lost 24-20 to the Saints, 29-28 to the Falcons and 23-20 to the Panthers. It’s all gone so wrong.

The defense can’t get any pressure on the quarterback, the middle of the field remains open for business down in and down out and the takeaways have dried up. Offensively, it didn’t seem to matter in Week 16 that Baker Mayfield had every single one of his targets healthy and raring to go. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin Jr., Jalen McMillan and Emeka Egbuka make up what is arguably the strongest quartet of receivers anywhere in the NFL, yet Josh Grizzard‘s offense was run-heavy and built on time of possession in last week’s loss. All that did was limit the unit’s ability to score, and the plan failed.

Considering the lack of development and/or regression of countless players all over the field, the lack of a killer instinct at any point over the last two and a half months and thought processes like that one in a must-win game against the Panthers, it’s hard not to feel like Bowles and this coaching staff are out of answers. And as a result, the lot of them could very well be coaching for their jobs over the final two weeks of the regular season.

Mike McDaniel and the rest of the Dolphins coaching staff could be in a similar spot, though for different reasons. It started off well enough for McDaniel in Miami, as he led the Dolphins to 9-8 and 11-6 records in 2022 and 2023, respectively. But after an 8-9 finish last year and a 2-7 start to this season, his job security became a big question mark. However, with the firing of general manager Chris Grier at the end of October, could that have been a sign that ownership viewed him, not McDaniel, as the problem?

Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel – Photo by: IMAGN – Sam Navarro

Four straight wins followed Grier’s firing, which got the Dolphins right back within striking distance of the playoffs at 6-7. But after a 28-15 loss to the Steelers on Monday Night Football in Week 15, Tua Tagovailoa was benched. In the first career start for rookie Quinn Ewers last week, Miami lost 45-21 to Cincinnati to fall to 6-9. So, where does that leave McDaniel and his staff with the offseason looming? No one really seems to know for sure.

The erratic play of Tagovailoa has been part of the problem in Miami, especially this year as he threw for 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions before being benched ahead of last week’s game. That has contributed to the Dolphins’ turnover differential of minus-5, which is hard to overcome. A season-ending injury to Tyreek Hill early on didn’t help either, though an 0-3 start with losses to the Colts, Patriots and Bills had already done enough to get them off on the wrong foot in 2025 before Hill went down.

That four-game winning streak that got them from 2-7 to 6-7 featured plenty of flashes of promise, with a blowout win over the Bills starting it off before wins over the Commanders, Saints and Jets. De’Von Achane is having a monster season with 1,267 rushing yards and eight touchdowns to go with 459 receiving yards and four more touchdowns, while Jaylen Waddle is on the cusp of a 1,000-yard season at 910 yards with two games to go.

Dolphins QB Quinn Ewers – Photo by: IMAGN – Sam Navarro

The offense hasn’t gotten much else out of the rest of the cast, with Malik Washington‘s 307 yards and two touchdowns ranking him as the No. 3 pass-catcher on the team. However, tight end Darren Waller does have six touchdowns in eight games, proving he still has something left in the tank. With Tagovailoa benched, though, the offense is on Ewers’ shoulders. He was 20-of-30 for 260 yards and two interceptions in his starting debut last week, and there’s not much there to believe he’s going to be the future after Tagovailoa. At this point, Miami is just playing out the rest of the season before charting its course for the future.

Defensively, the Dolphins are in the bottom half of the league in points per game allowed as well as total defense, and their run defense is the seventh-worst in the NFL. Miami has allowed 30+ points five times this season and allowed 27+ in four more games. This isn’t a very good unit right now, which matches up with the struggles of the offense.

Here’s how the Bucs and Dolphins stack up heading into Week 17:

Bucs Offense: T-18th in scoring offense (23.1 PPG), 23rd in total offense (315.3 yards per game), 22nd in passing offense (198.3 yards per game), T-20th in rushing offense (116.9 yards per game)

Dolphins Offense: 22nd in scoring offense (21.1 PPG), 24th in total offense (308.9 yards per game), 25th in passing offense (186.5 yards per game), 13th in rushing offense (122.4 yards per game)

Bucs Defense: 24th in scoring defense (25.1 points allowed per game), 22nd in total defense (343.3 yards allowed per game), 27th in passing defense (242.0 yards allowed per game), 7th in rushing defense (101.3 yards allowed per game)

Dolphins Defense: 22nd in scoring defense (24.6 points allowed per game), 19th in total defense (339.5 yards allowed per game), 14th in passing defense (209.1 yards allowed per game), 26th in rushing defense (130.3 yards allowed per game)

As of Tuesday night, the Bucs are 5-point favorites, with the Over/Under set at 46 (per Hard Rock Bet).

Bucs at Dolphins Game Information

When: Sunday, December 28
Where: Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, FL)
Kickoff: 1:00 p.m. ET
TV: FOX – Kenny Albert (Play by Play), Jonathan Vilma (Analyst), Jen Hale (Reporter)
Bucs Radio: 98Rock – Gene Deckerhoff (Play by Play), Dave Moore (Color), T.J. Rives (Reporter)
Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente – Martín Gramática, Santiago Gramática